Elon Musk's online network X has caused significant outrage after individuals used its AI chatbot Grok to manipulate photos of women by stripping their attire.
Several cases have been seen where the system has been used to digitally undress women to make them appear in swimwear without consent, as well as to put them in sexualized contexts.
Developer Reaction and Legal Stance
XAI, the company that created Grok, offered no comment to requests for comment, aside from an auto-reply response stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office representative stated that legislation is being introduced to outlaw nudification tools. Under a proposed law, anyone who supplied such technology would "receive a prison sentence and substantial penalties".
"X or Grok is capable of halting these types of abuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "operate with impunity."
Regulator Position and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said technology companies must "assess the risk" of people accessing illegal content on their platforms, but stopped short of confirming whether it was presently examining X or Grok in relation to AI-generated pictures.
Grok is a free AI assistant—with some premium features—which responds to X users' prompts when they mention it in a post.
It is commonly used to give commentary or more context to other posters' remarks, but people on X are also can alter an uploaded photo through its AI image editing tool.
History of Criticism and Policy
The tool has been condemned for allowing users to generate photos and footage with nudity and sexualised material, and it was earlier accused of creating inappropriate content of celebrities.
"The platform has been enabling the creation and sharing of these images for months without taking any steps and we have not witnessed any challenge by regulators," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy forbids "depicting images of persons in a sexually explicit manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was illegal to "generate or distribute deepfakes or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this included explicit AI images made with AI.
It said networks such as X were required to take "suitable actions" to "reduce the risk" of users encountering unlawful material on their services and to take down it promptly when they learn of it.
